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It is very hard to support polyamory with Old Testament laws unless you are justifying polygyny.

And yet, the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament is precisely where I reconciled my Christian faith with my interest in polyamory. Ironic, isn't it?

When Moses asked God who he should say sent him to free the Israelites from Egypt, God answered, "I Am Becoming Who I Am Becoming." This is a far more powerful mystery to contemplate than the purity laws of a given culture in a given historical time.

"I Am Becoming Who I Am Becoming."

And in Genesis, God created humans in God's own image.

So after months of wrestling with Scripture and translations and context, it all came down to one simple realization. The willful act of NOT becoming who I am becoming is a violation of my relationship with God.

With the astonishing realization of this simple but powerful truth, I understood that Christianity calls me to be a true and authentic person, first and foremost. True and authentic in dealing with polyamory, as much as with anything else.

I guess I would have to admit I'm a serious Christian. I'm pretty sure, though, that I'm capable of loving more than one woman at a time. Actually, that's definite.

I've been seeking some assurance that the Christian faith could tolerate that, but have never heard of such. Also that western society might not think of it as all that strange, but I don't get much encouragement there either.

I honestly think polyamory is fine. It's a generous emotional make up. I strongly feel that people who equate monogamy with virtue, loyalty, goodness, etc. only know what they are talking about in terms of their relationships, and otherwise should kiss off.

A book called Christianity and Eros by Philip Sherrard made a big difference in my thinking a long time ago. It's back in print now after having been out of print for a long time

It has little to say about non-monogamy or polyamory, but it did offer a springboard for me to understand the spiritual realities of sexuality, even from a Christian perspective.

Phoenix had an active non-monogamy/swinger group called Liberated Christians for a while in the '90s. The website is interesting but has a fairly heavy dose of wacky Arizona freak-i-tude to it.
No complaints here, but my impression is sudden alternation between lucid insight and wild-eyed ranting. It's entertaining. No offense if anyone here is involved with the group. What do I know?

"Love is something, if you give it away (give it away, give it away)
"Love is something, if you give it away, you end up having more
"It's just like a magic penny, hold it close and you won't have any
"But give it away and you'll have plenty, you'll end up having more"
(repeat ad nauseam)

Amen to that!

That was sung in my church last Sunday, and I was struck with the poly implications. -- The first Sunday I was at this church, the special music included IMAGINE from John Lennon. That blew my mind also.. it was a major point when I was an agnostic.

Over the years, I've swung from middle of the road Methodist to conservative Baptist, to speaking in tongues Pentacostal to Seventh Day Adventist back to Methodist. Then the pendulum swung toward gradients of dis-belief... Agnostic, Atheist... Which was ... lonely.

I rather enjoy imagining God cares for me... because I moved away from my support system & friends.

Now I've started going to a Unity church... which I'm not really sure what their doctrine is.. but they are friendly, accepting and loving. A recent sign out front said, "We honor all paths to God." There are a few Wiccans in the church.

I view the "Old Testament" for Christians a lot like studying the Talmud and Kabbalah for Jews. Paul testified that Jesus had provided a new covenant, so technically you can get everything you need to live a simply Christian life from the New Testament and the teachings of Jesus. But Jesus states that he is not erasing the old laws. So when you find yourself wanted a deeper understanding of your faith, or wrestling with questions that require deeper study to answer, you can turn to exploring the complexities and seeming contradictions of the Old Testament. Much like your average Jew can live off the teachings of Torah alone, but to get a truly complete understanding (or to resolve complicated questions that simply aren't fully addressed in the Torah) we have tons of additional canonical (and simply accepted but not quite canonical) writings. I imagine most religions are like this.

If you study the Old Testament and the whole Bible one thing becomes apparent: there is something for everyone in there, which sounds good on paper. But the fact is you can prove or disprove pretty much ANY CONCEPT using scripture. In history it has been suborned to defend the most heinous attitudes.

So arriving at a positive morality or any sense of the truth is a little difficult, except for one thing. The Holy Spirit. If you have Jesus' Ghost in your heart she can lead you to any and all truth - if you're open to it. The main trick is to distinguish this from church teachings. Sometimes those are right and sometimes not, but they don't pertain to you personally and this is always personal.

So arriving at a positive morality or any sense of the truth is a little difficult, except for one thing. The Holy Spirit. If you have Jesus' Ghost in your heart she can lead you to any and all truth - if you're open to it. The main trick is to distinguish this from church teachings. Sometimes those are right and sometimes not, but they don't pertain to you personally and this is always personal.

I agree that coming up with good morality is tough. I remember seeing two Christians argue about homosexuality. They both quoted the Bible to supoprt their views. But they could not reconcile it that way. They ended up both concluding that they felt right with God and the Holy Spirit with their views. Since opposite views could not both be right, at least one person must have had a fake feeling of being right with the Holy Spirit.

I don't think it's a "fake sense" of being right. I think that a lot of Christians simply fail to remember the "judge not" portion of their doctrine. The person who felt that homosexuality was wrong, and felt right with the Holy Spirit regarding that, had a proper understanding of what was morally wrong for him (or her). But there are plenty of things that may be wrong for any individual Christian to do, but that Jesus did not feel excluded a person from his association.

I agree that coming up with good morality is tough. I remember seeing two Christians argue about homosexuality. They both quoted the Bible to supoprt their views. But they could not reconcile it that way. They ended up both concluding that they felt right with God and the Holy Spirit with their views. Since opposite views could not both be right, at least one person must have had a fake feeling of being right with the Holy Spirit.

Why can't both opinions about homosexuality be right? Who says morality is universal? My whole adult life I have always found God to be personal, and what She wants to be specific to me. Universal morality almost never works, and strangely everyone I know acts at least as if they never noticed that. I suppose it's because in casual company morality questions don't often come up, unless, you know, they are newspaper issues.

It was an interesting discussion. They were arguing over gay marriage and gay rights in general. It started off with Bible verses. The cons side went with some Old Testament stuff and how some of the New Testament re-emphasized it. The idea was that if God wanted homosexuals killed before and called it an abomination, why would he approve it now?

I pointed out that the Old Testament commandment was to kill homosexuals. So the sinner was technicallly the person who refused to do so, not necessarily the homosexual.

The other Christian pointed out more New Testament stuff like the emphasis on love and not being judgemental. He mentioned that thew New Testament stuff against homosexuality was not convincing since it was Paul's views; it could have referred to pedophilia; could have referred to pagan worship; and/or could have referred to a heterosexual engaging in homosexuality.

The first Christian said that it was not ambigious because it referred to the Old Testament which was very clear. Also, the story about the adulterous woman was not part of the original New Testament and was added later (another Christian mentioned this one). They said it was a moral imperative to outlaw homosexuality just as we outlaw other abominations like murder.

The otehr Christian said it was not like murder since no one was hurt. But the first countered by saying that they were spiritually harmed. They accused the first of cherry picking Bible verses to support and ignore.

I pointed out that the anti-homosexual Christians were doing the same thing by ignoring the other Old Testament laws like killing non-virgin brides or treating lobsert like an abomination. They kind of both agreed that since I was not Christian, that I could not interpret the Bible without the Holy Spirit. However, they both said they were acting in accordance with the Holy Spirit.